Singularity

After an aircraft goes down over the Soviet island of Katorga-12, soldier Nate Renko becomes entangled in experiments with Element 99 and a catastrophe that has fractured time. Singularity is a first-person shooter that moves between 1955 and 2010, combining conventional firearms with a Time Manipulation Device used in combat and environmental puzzles.

Singularity follows Nate Renko, a modern-day American soldier sent to investigate unusual radiation on the remote Russian island Katorga-12. A crash leaves him among the remnants of Soviet research into Element 99, or E-99, a substance associated with powerful time distortions. The island's history is not confined to abandoned buildings: sudden temporal waves throw Renko between 1955 and 2010, exposing different states of the same places and the consequences of the experiments. The investigation becomes a struggle to understand a catastrophe that reaches beyond the island. Renko's route through the facility and its surrounding districts brings him into conflict with Russian forces and creatures altered by the unstable time effects, while fragments of the research help explain how the present came to be.

The Time Manipulation Device, usually shortened to TMD, is the tool that makes the island's changing past actionable. It lets Renko age objects until they deteriorate, or return selected things to an earlier and more intact state. A collapsed staircase can be restored to create a route; a damaged obstacle can be aged further when its weakened form opens a way forward. The same principle applies to movable objects and parts of the environment, so the player scans rooms for something whose former condition or position can solve an obstruction. A chrono-light can reveal objects as they appeared in the past, allowing Renko to pull a former structure into the present and use it as a bridge. These interactions make time manipulation part of traversal as well as combat.

Combat keeps the TMD alongside the conventional firearms rather than replacing them. Renko carries guns for ordinary shooting, while the device spends its energy on powers that affect enemies and the immediate space around them. Aging a human opponent rapidly can remove that soldier from the fight; a temporal sphere slows targets caught in its radius, creating an opening to reposition or shoot. Some creatures respond differently from human enemies: the same sphere may slow them or bring a creature into Renko's time so it can be hit. The device can also catch thrown explosives and rockets, then redirect them toward their source. Its object manipulation gives the player another way to respond to cover, nearby barrels and incoming attacks, so encounters can combine aiming, weapon changes and short bursts of time control.

The arsenal broadens the shooter side of the loop with standard rifles and shotguns as well as unusual weapons whose functions reward deliberate use. One firearm can guide its projectile toward a target, while the sniper rifle uses a temporary slow-motion effect to set up a series of shots. The TMD can alter enemy cover, exposing a soldier who thought the barrier would protect them, and it can move objects that may serve as improvised tools. Human soldiers and time-mutated creatures demand different responses: a creature that phases out of time cannot be treated like an exposed rifleman, while another may be slowed or shifted into a vulnerable state. These differences make it useful to switch between shooting, device powers and the available surroundings rather than relying on one attack for every encounter.

Progress comes from exploring the island's connected spaces and gathering E-99 technology and weapon upgrade cases. E-99 supports upgrades for the TMD and character, while the weapon cases improve firearms; the upgrades can affect health and protection, weapon damage, magazine capacity or reload speed. Stations encountered along the route provide places to apply those improvements, and the TMD itself gains additional powers as the campaign advances. New abilities expand how the player can handle a fight or a puzzle, while upgrading the powers already earned improves their duration, area or effect. This progression sits beside ammunition and health supplies, encouraging a player to check side rooms and visible containers when moving through research areas, transit spaces and other sections of Katorga-12.

The story is delivered through present-day exploration and glimpses of earlier events rather than a single uninterrupted account. Audio recordings and period film clips add details about the Soviet project, while echo events replay moments from the island's 1950s past at the locations where they took place. Because the chronology shifts between two eras, a route or obstacle may be understood differently after a transition. Renko's movement through a research complex, service corridors and exposed sections of the island therefore alternates between fighting, inspecting rooms, manipulating damaged structures and following information left behind by people connected to the E-99 work.

At release, Singularity included online multiplayer built around opposing teams of soldiers and creatures. Extermination is an assault-and-defend mode, while Creatures Vs. Soldiers places the two sides against one another in team combat. Players select character classes and can tailor them with perks; on the human side, class abilities include benefits provided by the TMD, while creatures use their own powers. The Zek can create and throw an explosive barrel, the Revert can slow opponents and support teammates, and the Tick can leap onto a soldier and take control of that body. These abilities draw on creatures and technology from the single-player setting, but multiplayer gives them a separate objective and team structure from Renko's campaign on Katorga-12.